Top positive review

5.0 out of 5 starsAlexa developers - listen to the nearsighted of America!!!!

December 29, 2017

So far, so much love, with a tiny suggestion - hopefully the Amazon developers read these reviews.

Easy peesy set up - I was able to get it up and running and customized in less than 20 minutes - score!!!Paired my bluetooth Thonet and Vander speakers (that also live with my bedroom TV) flawlessly. Figured out how to set recurring and different alarms for weekdays and weekends (after you set the 'single alarm' go to the alexa app under alarms and reminders - you have far more control through the app to easily change that single alarm into a recurring alarm with lots of options). Got a photo uploaded to make a custom clock face (used my photo cloud storage at Prime). Played some Prime music. Watched a little CNN. What isn't to love???

THE FONT SIZE!!!!!

It can't be that hard to give us options on font size on the 'personalized' clock. Hey, Amazon developers, not all of us have perfect eyesight, especially at night when the eyeglasses end up on the night stand next to the Spot. Listen to the nearsighted of America, heck, the World, give us a bigger font!!!!!

As soon as Amazon addresses this 'you gotta be kidding' fix, I will be changing that 4 star review to a 5!!!

Edit:They listened!!!There is now a much bigger font, very similar to what I photoshopped in my ‘wish’ photo, and it can turn red at night. A++ and I changed my rating to five stars. I really like this little spot, we have been buying more Alexa compatible items and our ‘smart home’ is really coming together.

And for all of my ‘commentors’ who suggested just asking Alexa what time it is, I would rather not wake up my guy in the middle of the night.

Top critical review

This is an excellent smart device with one major flaw that makes it unbearable. There’s no way to deactivate “Things To Try”, which means you’re forced to watch on-screen tutorials of basic Alexa tips each time the Spot wakes up. It’s not possible to deactivate this “feature.”

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This is an excellent smart device with one major flaw that makes it unbearable. There’s no way to deactivate “Things To Try”, which means you’re forced to watch on-screen tutorials of basic Alexa tips each time the Spot wakes up. It’s not possible to deactivate this “feature.”

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So far, so much love, with a tiny suggestion - hopefully the Amazon developers read these reviews.

Easy peesy set up - I was able to get it up and running and customized in less than 20 minutes - score!!!Paired my bluetooth Thonet and Vander speakers (that also live with my bedroom TV) flawlessly. Figured out how to set recurring and different alarms for weekdays and weekends (after you set the 'single alarm' go to the alexa app under alarms and reminders - you have far more control through the app to easily change that single alarm into a recurring alarm with lots of options). Got a photo uploaded to make a custom clock face (used my photo cloud storage at Prime). Played some Prime music. Watched a little CNN. What isn't to love???

THE FONT SIZE!!!!!

It can't be that hard to give us options on font size on the 'personalized' clock. Hey, Amazon developers, not all of us have perfect eyesight, especially at night when the eyeglasses end up on the night stand next to the Spot. Listen to the nearsighted of America, heck, the World, give us a bigger font!!!!!

As soon as Amazon addresses this 'you gotta be kidding' fix, I will be changing that 4 star review to a 5!!!

Edit:They listened!!!There is now a much bigger font, very similar to what I photoshopped in my ‘wish’ photo, and it can turn red at night. A++ and I changed my rating to five stars. I really like this little spot, we have been buying more Alexa compatible items and our ‘smart home’ is really coming together.

And for all of my ‘commentors’ who suggested just asking Alexa what time it is, I would rather not wake up my guy in the middle of the night.

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So the Echo Spot is a glorified alarm clock. To me, though, it represents something more as I get ready to return to work after being laid off 6 months ago. To get back into the routine of waking up early on weekdays, I *need* an alarm clock now, and the Spot is my early "new job" present. I was delighted when it was delivered a whole day before the official release date. Echo Spot is a metaphor for Alexa sneaking into the earliest, most vulnerable part of your daily routine, and in my case it's a very exciting journey as I return to a regular 9-to-5 (with *pay*). Enough about my plight--how will this thing work for YOU?

OVERALL CONCLUSION======================Four stars out of five because Echo Spot's screen is a useful addition to Alexa, the overall aesthetic design is great, the sound is very good for a tiny speaker, BUT the price is high and the video ecosystem is immature (and not ideal on a round screen). You should buy it if you really need a fancy device in the kitchen or bedroom and you have this amount budgeted for an "extravagant" gadget for yourself or loved one. Otherwise, wait a little while until the price eventually decreases.

WHO SHOULD BUY AN ECHO SPOT?==================================The Echo Spot is one of the more expensive ways to enter the Alex ecosystem. It has a screen, which none of the other small speaker versions have. Only the angular (ugly?) tablet-on-stand Echo Show has a screen, but that's where the differences end.✓ If you care about style and want to put a device in the bedroom, on a desk at work, or in the kitchen, the Spot would look great.✓ If you want to see the live video feed from a Nest/Dropcam/Ring, etc. camera, watch a video (albeit a limited selection right now), see reminders, lists, song lyrics and recipes, that screen is really helpful.✓ If you want an upgrade to the Dot (whose speaker isn't really meant for music) and have about the same amount of money to spend as the Echo (Gen 2), the Spot should be on your shortlist. The Echo G2 wins for sound quality by a small margin, but the Spot wins big for versatility with its screen and hardwired line-out for an external speaker (which the larger Echo Show inexplicably lacks, supporting only Bluetooth and not corded external speakers).

HOW DOES THE SCREEN LOOK?=============================Good, not great. The resolution is excellent, somewhat close to retina, but the brightness is just OK, the glare is waaaay worse than I wanted (similar to the new/cheap Fire tablet screens, which lack the gapless lamination you'd find on the older/expensive Fire tablets and of course on all modern iPads). These previous factors coupled with the visible (but not terrible) color-shifting at extreme viewing angles make me realize how spoiled I am with flagship phone and tablet screens in the last 2-3 years. This is not a top-tier smartphone display, but I have to give a lot of credit for the cool-factor of a perfectly round screen.

ARE VIDEOS WATCHABLE?=========================I looked up a recipe for the ever-sumptuous pannacotta. To my delight, the Spot immediately took me to allrecipes.com with a video on how to make an easy version of this Italian dessert. The video was zoomed in to fill the circular screen, and it looked surprisingly "normal". It's not likely that Amazon somehow curated videos for ones that look good on a circle screen, so my assumption is that most video producers just center tightly on their subjects and we actually don't use the sides of our rectangular screens very much.That being said, I couldn't stand to watch long-form content on this tiny screen. Moreover, where is YouTube? Please end this fight, Amazon and Google. Maybe it will be available in 2018. Until then, recipes from non-Google sites are the killer app for the Spot, and they are a tremendously useful feature.

HOW IS THE SOUND?====================I own the Echo Dot (gen 2) and the Echo (gen 1), and the sound of the Echo Spot is somewhere between them. If the Echo Dot is 30 in quality and the Echo is 100, the Spot is probably a 70 or perhaps even 80. It's going to forego a lot of bass richness, but I listened to many hours of music this week and I was pleasantly surprised at how good the sound actually was. It's certainly better than any other speaker I've had in a bedroom or at work, which is where the majority of these will end up. If you want even better sound, then buy a nice Bluetooth speaker as a satellite, but the Echo Spot already sounds as good as the $50 little Bluetooth cubes a co-worker had at my former job. It's got a standard stereo out port and Bluetooth streaming, so if you need better speakers now or down the road, you can expand.

WHAT ARE SOME THINGS YOU LIKE?=================================✓ Design, weight, premium feel✓ Very responsive touch screen✓ Lyrics for songs (the killer app for old Christmas carols, wow!)✓ Recipes✓ Video calling (worked well with my Alexa app on my Android phone)✓ Voice drop-in / intercom✓ Custom photo upload for background✓ Simple, uncomplicated UI, and most things, even Wi-Fi setup, don't need the Alexa app--this is a good gift for people who aren't bonded to a smartphone✓ Easily watch Amazon video content (but on a tiny screen)✓ Multi-room features are INCREDIBLE. During setup, I had my Echo Dot in the same room, and Alexa just *knew* (ESP is a great name) which device I was talking to; playing music in all rooms is nifty as well...✓ Mics and voice recognition seem just as good as all the other Echo devices, even though Spot seems to have only 4, not 7 like my original Echo and new Echo Dot both have

THINGS LESS LIKABLE?======================❌ Power cord is not USB--why can't this just be a USB-C device?!?❌ Not a lot of clock faces, just 6 analog and digital right now; I do LOVE the "bokeh" clock face, though, which is a geeky photographer's term that refers to those out of focus rings made by lens aperture blades❌ Can't watch many video sources, yet❌ Expensive--this thing is as overpriced as the original Echo, so expect it to drop to about half the current level in 1-2 years❌ Screen is silly small for watching longer videos or videos that can't be cropped to circular proportions❌ No way to really "stop" video--it started again on its own today, which was beyond annoying because I had left the room at least 5 minutes beforehand and heard it resume from across the hall❌ UPDATE: You can "tap" anywhere on the touchscreen while the alarm is going off to snooze for 9 minutes. Very cool! Thanks to commenter Smokey DeBear for correcting me. (Original statement, now no longer valid: Utility as an alarm clock relies on using your voice--no dedicated buttons or intuitive way to snooze, etc.)❌ Camera could be a risk for those concerned about privacy and can't be *truly* disabled aside from blackout tape (which apparently stops the motion sensor and auto-brightness as well)

ABOUT THE PHOTOS===================I wanted to include some common fruit for size comparison, so the logical sequence is to show you a grapefruit and tangerine so that you can visually see the Spot is about the size of a large orange. My wife then decided that Spot was "lonely" and needed "friends", so the two citrus fruits got faces, courtesy of a black Sharpie. Hopefully she'll keep the marker away from the Spot itself!To show an example of a custom clock face, I then took a photo of the grapefruit with the smiley face and made it the "face" of the Echo Spot. It was already round, so the cropping worked really well. You can upload any photo from your phone and zoom/crop to fit.

UPDATE AFTER 5 DAYS====================Everyone who has come over for holiday gatherings has been amazed by the sound quality. It's a tiny form factor for such rich sound.

I realized that the motion sensor will enable lyrics display as you walk up to it, waking it from the clock mode if music is playing. Neat!

My phone is suddenly becoming less useful to call people because the speakerphone quality of the Echo Spot is just incredible. Everyone I've called says the audio on their side is amazing. Alexa wakes up and processes voice commands so much quicker than "OK Google" on my Nexus 6P, so it's more convenient to call when I'm near an Echo device.

The kids love playing 20 questions and The Magic Door with Alexa. The Spot's screen doesn't help much with those, but I can definitely see other games/skills being built to entertain kids (and big kids) for hours. This could be a great homework helper in the future as the ecosystem evolves . . . "Alexa, how do you spell syzygy?" and the word appears on the screen as Alexa reinforces with spoken letters, S-Y-Z-Y-G-Y.

UPDATE AFTER 4 WEEKS=====================Things that cracked me up the most: "Alexa, sing a barbershop quartet" and "Alexa, sing auld lang syne." The first is pretty bad, but Auld Lang Syne is FABULOUS and obviously has some human backup singers.

Things I'm totally addicted to: I use the Echo Spot as a remote portal to check-in with the kids while I'm working remotely. I "drop in" on their Echo Dot and have been reading aloud to them ("Lord of the Rings," if you're curious) for an hour or so, a few times a week. The speakerphone quality is phenomenal and the connection is very stable. I wouldn't be able to do this on my cellphone.

Lists galore: I now have half a dozen lists going because it's so easy to make lists and add stuff via voice. I worry that my short-term memory will be totally gone in a few years as I now depend on virtual assistants for everything . . .

ALSO, responding to another reviewer, the clock's time size is big on the INCLUDED clock faces! See the last photo I just uploaded. Amazon must think that if you have a personal photo uploaded, you want the time to be small (which makes sense--you can see your photo better), so if you want the numbers large, just don't upload a personal watchface photo. Maybe they'll give an option to change that in the future, but it's not a big deal, in my opinion. Finally, if you walk up to the Spot and the camera senses your motion, the display will change to the weather or reminders, etc. Therefore: it's only big when it senses no motion (you're far away) and you've got a stock clock face. Pretty smart!

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I have 3 Echo Dots in the house & mom & I really like them. When I heard about this a couple of months ago I jumped right on the pre-order train. It caught my attention because the Echo Show was interesting to me but it was just way to big. I wanted something that I could use as a clock by the bed, currently I was using my Moto 360 watch (it turns into a simple clock dial when docked). So this would replace two things on the stand (my watch as a clock & the Echo Dot). I absolutely LOVE it. / What I really wasn't fond of were the clock dials, all I wanted was a simple clock (all black background & white numbers), sadly that option isn't available as a choice... but there is a work around!

As you can see in the pics it's VERY dim at night when the lights are off & it's bright & clearly visible when the lights are on but still stays as a simple black & white clock.

For those that want to know how to achieve this:

1.) The main thing is to turn on the "Night Mode" "Nighttime Clock" (pic3) and set it to run 24hrs a day.

2.) Turn on the "Adaptive Brightness" & crank up the brightness, you can see how high I set mine in the pic (pic4), but you can fine tune this setting to your liking (this is the setting that actually controls how bright it is in the day & how dim it is at night).

3.) Choose the "Street Lights" or "Bokeh" digital clock.

4.) That's it, once you make those setting just wait about a minute for it to go back into standby mode and your "simple clock" will fade in.

Oh, for those that have an issue with the screen cycling through all the the displays non-stop (Clock-Weather-Things To Try, etc.) & just want it to stay on the clock face of your choosing, the way to achieve that is to go into Settings>Home & Clock>Home Card Preferences, click on "Rotate Once".

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PROS: Small (~4") Echo device with excellent voice recognition, color touch screen and camera is perfect for small places like bed-side table or kitchen counter. Good sound and image quality for such a small device. Constant software updates allow for almost limitless possibilities for uses now and in the future. In fact, many criticisms of early reviews have already been addressed and corrected.

CONS: Not many and those that exist are, for the most part, software related and fixable by Amazon in the near future or IMHO, minor. Keep in mind that although this can play music, display videos, and make phone calls, the Spot is not a high res TV, a large entertainment center, a high fidelity listening device, or a smart phone. Expectations should be based on the fact that the Spot is a 4" device with a 1.4" speaker and a 2.5" screen.

REVIEW UPDATE JULY/9/2018:I still love the Spot. I use it for a bedside "smart" clock radio, and I am extremely happy with it.

What does it do? It wakes me up. It plays music. It displays the time. It answers questions, mostly about the current weather conditions.

I don't use it to teleconference, watch movies or videos, or call people's cell phones. I have the camera turned off. It's on my bedside table....Yuk! No always on camera, thank you!

As suspected, Amazon has added enhancements and fixed glitches with software upgrades. Complaints about the home screen clock face? Now there are a huge amount of customize able choices one can select. You can pick a background pattern, photo, or color, the type of clock hands or digital display, and whether there should be a tiny window for the date.

My biggest complaint is with the music it plays. I often have trouble getting Alexa to play the music I want. One has to ask Alexa properly, in the correct order. You have to say, "Alexa, Play songs by Bonnie Raitt." Or "Alexa, Play songs from my Modern Blues Playlist by Bonnie Raitt." Asking "Alexa, Play Bonnie Raitt" might just get a "Sorry! There are no songs called Bonnie Raitt" response. Things can get far trickier when you want to listen to a particular symphony by Beethoven.

Another issue is that "Shuffle" is not random. The shuffled songs are always played in the exact same order, every time they are played.

ORIGINAL DECEMBER 21, 2018 REVIEW:

THINGS TO KNOW:

1) The Spot has four types of controls, which often overlap in purpose and function:

a) Physical buttons on the top allow you to raise and lower the sound, turn the camera on and off.

b) Voice recognition: "Alexa, raise the sound," "Alexa, show me the current temperature," "Alexa, play modern blues,"

c) Touch screen:---Swipe down to reveal a settings menu. Spend at least a few minutes exploring this menu and filling in important information like time zone and your location. By going through each setting, you will be able to customize many if not most of Spot's offerings.---Touch the screen when music is playing to see title of artist, various play functions, and lyrics if available.---Touch the screen for "snooze" when the alarm is going off.

d) The Alexa app which can be downloaded to your smart phone or tablet. This is not entirely necessary for the Spot.

2) If you want the Spot to do something, tell it to do it. If the clock is not showing on the screen, say "Alexa, show the clock." If you want to know the current temperature say "Alexa, what is the current temperature." If you want it to stop rotating the dopey "Trending Topics" screen say "Alexa, stop showing the "Trending Topics" screen."

3) The quality of the screen is pretty good but not so good that you will want to watch a full length video. It's good enough for video calling, looking at album art, reading lyrics, glancing at the temperature, following a recipe.

4) The quality of the sound is pretty good. If you consider yourself an audiophile and are looking for a top quality audio system to listen to The Emperor Concerto with Artur Rubenstein, the Spot is absolutely not going to do it for you. Also, the Spot does not sound like a Bose. If you want or need fabulous sound quality, get a Bose. If you want an all purpose, small device that sounds good, the Spot's for you.

REVIEW:I've been looking for a bed-side clock radio for about a year and just couldn't decide on anything. Like Goldilocks, the choices were either too big/too small/or way too last century. The minute I saw the Echo Spot, my heart did a flip! It was perfect.

First of all, the Spot is darned cute...in a small, round, orb-stylish way. My bedside table has a rim around it, so I decided to purchase the Echo Spot Adjustable Stand - White which lifts the Echo up about 1 1/2" and allows the Spot to tilt forward and back.

Set up is a snap. You plug it in, and Spot comes to life. The touch screen lights up and Spot talks to you. You pick your WiFi from a list, enter your WiFi password, and wait a minute or so while the software updates. While waiting you stare at the Spot and admire its adorableness. When the software is updated, you answer a few questions and before you know it, you and Spot are going steady and Spot has become the boss of you.

To change settings you swipe down on the screen to see the settings menu. It is important to go into Settings and set your preferences.

For now, here are six digital and six analog clock face selections for the home screen. I picked an old fashioned analog clock face with a sweep second hand and a small window for the date. You can also use a photo for the home screen.

The home screen clock alternates with several other info screens. One shows the current temperature, the time, the moon phase, and name of your city/location. Another gives suggestions of things or "Skills" to ask Spot to do for you. Another, which I quickly turned off, announces trending topics. I just didn't find "Scientists find moth not seen in 10 years" something I needed to see or even know.

Tune In Radio (which is free) provides all the radio stations I like to listen to. I ask Spot: "Alexa, play 1010 WINS on TuneIn" and away we go.

My only complaint is that there is an obvious bias to sign one up for Amazon Music Unlimited. Some requests for songs bump up against an advertisement for this subscription streaming service. I have a Prime membership and an Amazon Music account. That should be enough for now.

For now, Spot and I are in our honeymoon period and nothing is going to get me down.

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I am not one for reviews but I just had to write this. This thing is a work of art. My whole house is a smart house from my locks to my thermostats. I have 1 Echo, 4 Echo Dots and now one Echo Spot. I love this. It works as expected. I am a total Apple Guy but I choose Alexa over Siri any day. Amazon has knocked it out of the park!

Great product and I would give 5 stars - but you can't scroll face cards without having the stupid "try and ask Alexa" suggestions pop up. Yes you can have it scroll once, and just stay on the clock, but I like having other cards as well. God its the worst and SO irritating. I got it super cheap, so i just face the screen toward the wall and treat it like a Dot instead of a Spot. What a dumb move on Amazons​ part.

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I've attached a photo of my various models for comparison purposes. I have every possible variation of Alexa, 13 total even kickstarter devices that have not even hit the market yet. Alexa has become a routine part of my life in my home, at work, even in my car over the last 2.5 years. I really hesitated on buying the Spot after my disappointment with preordering the Echo Show (I gave it a 3 star rating). After watching the reviews and and interacting with people that owned the Spot I took the plunge and received my device today.

I won't waste anyone's time explaining what Alexa can or can not do. At this point everyone either owns an Alexa device or knows someone with one. I will warn you though that purchasing an Alexa device is like a gateway drug, You will be buying more and will find yourself investing in smart home devices and accessories.

Setting up the Spot was easy in fact I did most of it from the Alexa app before my Spot arrived. As soon as I plugged it in I was prompted to connect to my wifi. I easily typed in the password from the Spot's touch screen and was instantly synced with my other Alexa devices. All I had to do was some simple customization from the app and device once I received it. I wish that Amazon would give us complete control on the touch screen devices rather than still depending on an app for set up.

The only thing I actually couldn't figure out how to do on my own was set reoccurring alarms. Ironic since it's an alarm clock. To set a reoccurring alarm you say repeat alarm specific day of the week and time. This is great because my schedule changes every day. My alarm clock only let me set a weekday and weekend alarms with the same time on the week day or weekend. However the downside is if you wake up every day at the same time you still have to set a repeating alarm for every day of the week. Once the alarms are set you can fine tune them from the Alexa app. I wish it could all be controlled from the Spot's touch screen.

I was hoping for a larger variety of Alarm tones than what the other Echo devices already had, but that's not the case with the Spot. If you already own an Alexa device you can preview all the different alarms from the app.

Reviewers have complained about the size of the digits for reading the time being too small. I found this to be untrue. I could easily make out the time from 12 feet away. Also if you have poor vision, or let say take your glasses off and can't see at night you don't even have to open your eyes to find out what time it is. Just ask Alexa what time is it? Some reviewers have said that the Spot doesn't support bluetooth, that's also untrue.

I don't think that the sound is much louder than an Echo Dot, it is much richer and has more bass making it sound better. I wish Amazon would create an adjustable equalizer in the app or on the touch screens of their capable devices.

One thing I do not like is if I am using my fire stick connected to my Spot by default all viewing commands go straight to the fire stick. I can't watch a Prime movie and use my Spot at the same time. The Spot will use my commands to control my firestick.

The dimming feature is much better than any alarm clock I've ever owned. Aesthetically the device looks very good, the resolution and display are vibrant, the touch screen is smooth and responsive.

Loudness 1st Gen Echo > 2nd Gen Echo > Echo Show > Spot > Dot. So for volume and quality of sound the Spot sits in the exact same place 2nd to last. It's also worth noting that despite that it's the second most expensive variation of Alexa excluding the Fire 10 HD with hands free Alexa.

I kind of wished I would have bought another Echo Show for my bedroom when they were on sale for $149, but now that I have the Spot I can see why it makes sense having one in my bedroom instead of another Echo Show. It's great having all of the features of an Echo Show on a compact device that is visually more appealing and doesn't crowd my nightstand.

If I had to choose only one Echo device the Spot wouldn't be it for me. However if you are already invested in the Alexa ecosystem the Spot makes a great addition.

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The physical product is great. Love it! BUT THE FIRMWARE NEEDS TO BE UPDATED!! "Things to try" needs to be GONE. The clock faces need to be more customizable. Like putting the weather on the clock face, more digital options, and dates. Different fonts. Ect...and a white noise option like the Google home has would be very nice. Rain, thunder, wind, and heavy rain.

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I’ve had the opportunity to play with my Spot for just about 24-hours now, and I have to admit that I am pretty impressed so far! The display is very nice, the touch screen is responsive, the ambient light sensor does a great job of reducing brightness of the screen to adjust for lighting in the room, and the speakers are GREAT. (I really think that it sounds a ton better than the Echo Dots do!) I love being able to upload a personal photo to use as the “clock face” and the ability to schedule “night mode” is great. It’s just as nice as having the “always on display” on my phone, and it was dim enough during the night as not to bother me.

My BIGGEST complaint thus far is (what I consider to be) an EPIC failure on behalf of the Echo Spot’s development team. Why in the name of Pete would you NOT give users the ability to display a 24-hour time format??? ASIDE from the practical applications of the 24-hour format, there are HUNDREDS UPON THOUSANDS of military personnel, police, fire, ETC. that use the 24-hour time format as a way of life. I KNOW that it is probably more difficult than just being a “display issue” considering that timers, alarms, etc. are all based on vocal commands, but I somehow doubt that it’s beyond the realm of possibilities.

Aside from that, the only thing that I am a tad bit annoyed with are all the “Things to Try” messages that keep popping up on my screen. I’d like to be able to turn those off. This is a solid product and is HIGHLY recommended!